The transition to market principles in Russia's agro-food sector forced the country's agricultural institutes of higher eduction to adapt their curriculum to the new economic system. This included the introduction of the subject studies of agricultural markets. The paper shows that until the collectivization of agriculture in the early 1930s Russia did, in fact, have an own tradition in this dicipline, which was influenced by well-known Russian economists like Chaynov and Kondratyev.